Ars Technica has a nice article up discussing a decision from a California federal court that effectively ends one of John Steele’s bittorrent lawsuits.  From the opinion:

even if the IP addresses at issue in this motion all came from a single swarm, there is no evidence to suggest that each of the addresses “acted in concert” with all [or indeed, any -sg] of the others. In fact, the nearly six-week span covering the activity associated with each of the addresses calls into question whether there was ever common activity linking the addresses in this case. … At the very least, there is no proof that bits from each of these addresses were ever assembled into a single swarm. As the court previously explained, under this court’s precedent regarding other file sharing protocols, merely infringing the same copyrighted work over this period is not enough.

That’s a pretty lucid discussion of why plaintiffs’ suits are all eventually doomed for bad joinder of defendants. The opinion doesn’t get far enough to even really address the question of whether plaintiffs’ evidence is sufficient to prove that any infringement actually occurred.

It’s refreshing to see another judge recognize the problem and refuse to allow his court . . . → Read More: Federal Judge severs defendant Does from California Bittorrent case Hard Drive Productions v. Does 1 – 188